Temperatures will range from 31 to 27 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. Winds will range between 12 and 18 miles per hour from the west.

7-Day Forecast

Tuesday

31°F / 4°F

Partly Cloudy

Wednesday

13°F / -2°F

Sunny

Thursday

16°F / -2°F

Partly Cloudy

Friday

28°F / 8°F

Cloudy

Saturday

27°F / 12°F

Partly Cloudy

Sunday

31°F / 13°F

Light Snow

Monday

25°F / 19°F

Mostly Cloudy

Detailed Short Term Forecast

Issued at 0:56 AM CST

Tuesday...Temperatures will range from a high of 31 to a low of 4 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Winds will range between 12 and 20 miles per hour from the west. Less than 1 inch of snow is possible.

This Evening
...Temperatures will range from 25 to 13 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Winds will range between 12 and 20 miles per hour from the northwest. No precipitation is expected.

Overnight
...Temperatures will range from 11 to 4 degrees with mostly clear skies. Winds will remain steady around 15 miles per hour from the west. No precipitation is expected.

Wednesday...Temperatures will range from a high of 13 to a low of -2 degrees with mostly clear skies. Winds will range between 7 and 21 miles per hour from the westnorthwest. Less than 1 inch of snow is possible.

We cannot become energy independent today by cutting coal out of the mix. However, more power plants are switching to natural gas. Mines are closing throughout the coal mining regions of our country because natural gas is cheaper and plentiful. Power plants are using more and more natural gas, creating a diminishing demand for coal.

Mountaintop removal for coal mining is not popular. Blasting away the Appalachian Mountains fills up valleys with coal sludge. This sludge seeps into water supplies, killing fish and wildlife and poisoning the water supply.

In 2000, Martin county Kentucky experienced a coal sludge break created by Massey Coal reeking disaster for Eastern Kentucky.

The coal slurry spill disaster created an environmental sludge that filled two tributaries and eventually poured into the Tug and Ohio rivers. The sludge was 30 times environmentally worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

It is considered one of the worst environmental disasters ever in the southeastern part of the United States.

Energy independence is not an excuse to abuse our planet and ignore events like the Martin County sludge spill and Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill that happened in 2008 in Tennessee.

These events remind us that the burden is not only on the power plants to burn clean energy but also on those who mine the fossil fuels.

It only makes sense to burn and mine coal cleaner. This is a huge burden on the power plants and coal operators of America. The reports are that we are making progress but there is a lot more work to do.

I have always been a fan of coal, because coal mining fed our family. If coal usage further declines, the economy in West Virginia and East Kentucky will continue to be devastated.

However, crying economy and jobs will not solve this problem. The way to turn the coal industry around is to find solutions to cleaner mining and cleaner power plants.

The demand for cleaner energy is here to stay. People are not going to talk less about clean energy.

The EPA and environmental groups across the country are here to stay. Governmental leaders are listening to these groups and not just the owners of fossil fuel companies.

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